Flexible and interchangeable multi-head floor polishing disk assembly

ABSTRACT

A disk assembly for use with floor grinding and/or polishing machines. The disk assembly includes multiple cutting heads attached to a flexible rubber disk, and a layer of hook and loop type fastener material for attaching the disk assembly to the drive plate of the floor grinding and/or polishing machine. The disk assembly also includes a foam pad for attachment between the flexible polishing disk and the drive plate to provide additional support structure, and a rigid plate which can optionally be used between the flexible polishing disk and the foam pad to maintain a flat polishing surface.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates generally to a multi-head disk assembly for afloor grinding and/or polishing machine and, more particularly, to afloor polishing disk assembly which includes multiple abrasive heads, isflexible to better accommodate unevenness in the floor surface, and usesa hook and loop fastener material for attachment to a drive plate of afloor grinding and/or polishing machine.

2. Discussion of the Related Art

Grinding and polishing machines have been used for many years forfinishing floors—including floors made of concrete, granite, marble,terrazzo, epoxy, hardwood, vinyl, and other materials. These machinesinclude scrubber machines, swing machines, buffer machines, planetarygrinding machines, counter-rotating grinders, burnishing machines, etc.These machines may use multiple abrasive heads to do the work ofgrinding and polishing the floor surface. The abrasive heads areavailable in a variety of grit sizes, or levels of coarseness, tofacilitate the entire floor finishing process—from the rough grinding ofthe floor as initially installed, to the fine polishing of the floorsurface to a finished condition.

In order for the abrasive heads to be changed from one grit size toanother, they are usually detachable from a drive plate of the floorpolishing machine. Some machines use a simple hook and loop typefastener material to attach the individual abrasive heads to the driveplate. Other machines use metal plug-type cutting head tools which areinserted into tool holders on the drive plate. While these existingdesigns allow the abrasive heads to be interchanged, they require eachindividual abrasive head to be changed separately, and this process canbe somewhat time consuming and error prone. This is especially trueconsidering that many floor polishing machines have multiple driveplates, with each drive plate supporting multiple abrasive heads.

Furthermore, in the machines described above, the abrasive heads aredirectly attached to the drive plate of the floor polishing machine.This results in a rigid planar cutting surface which does not readilyconform to the uneven or curved surfaces that are common in many floorapplications. A need exists for a abrasive head apparatus which can beused on existing floor polishing machines, which allows some flexibilitybetween the individual abrasive heads, and which can be quickly andeasily changed from one grit size to another without handling multiplecomponents.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a grindingand/or polishing disk assembly is disclosed for use with a floorgrinding and/or polishing machine. The disk assembly includes a thinflexible polishing disk having multiple abrasive heads and a backing padto allow deflection of the polishing disk as the abrasive heads passover uneven or curved floor surfaces. The flexible polishing disk andbacking pad can have a hook and loop type fastener material on theirsurfaces that allows them to be easily attached to and detached fromeach other and the drive plate of the floor polishing machine.

Additional features of the present invention will become apparent fromthe following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an underside view of a typical floor grinding and polishingmachine including three flexible disk assemblies;

FIG. 2 is an underside view of a typical floor grinding and polishingmachine including one disk assembly;

FIG. 3 is an exploded view of one of the flexible disk assembliesremoved from the machine;

FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the disk assembly shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a side view of the disk assembly shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a section view of a backing pad that is part of the diskassembly shown in FIG. 3; and

FIG. 7 is a section view of a rigid plate that can be part of the diskassembly shown in FIG. 3.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The following discussion of the embodiments of the invention directed toa flexible and interchangeable multi-head floor polishing disk assemblyis merely exemplary in nature, and is in no way intended to limit theinvention or its applications or uses.

The present invention proposes a disk assembly for use on a floorgrinding and/or polishing machine. The disk assembly includes multipleabrasive heads integrated into a single flexible polishing disk, and afoam backing pad which, in conjunction with the flexibility of thepolishing disk, allows the abrasive heads to follow the contour of acurved or uneven floor surface. The disk assembly features easyattachment to and detachment from the floor grinding and polishingmachine via hook and loop fastener material, and may include an optionalrigid backing plate for flat floor applications.

FIG. 1 shows the bottom of a floor grinding and/or polishing machine 10typical of those available on the market today. The machine 10 isintended to represent any known type of floor grinding and/or polishingmachine—including scrubber machines, swing machines, buffer machines,planetary grinding machines, counter-rotating grinders, burnishingmachines, etc—that may have a single or multiple drive plates. Themachine 10 includes a platform 12 with one or more rotating drive plates14 each including a protrusion 16. In some types of these machines thereis only one drive plate 14 that covers the entire diameter of theplatform 12. A flexible disk assembly 18 is mounted to each drive plate14 around the protrusion 16 in an easily attachable and detachablemanner, as will be described in detail below.

The diameter of the disk assembly 18 would be selected to accommodatethe particular machine that it is being with. FIG. 2 shows the machine10 with a single disk assembly 18 as representative of an alternateembodiment, where the disk assembly 18 would have a larger diameter.

FIG. 3 is an exploded view, FIG. 4 is a bottom view and FIG. 5 is a sideview of one of the flexible disk assembly 18 removed from the grindingand/or polishing machine 10. The disk assembly 18 is designed to be usedas a tool which is attached to the drive plate 14 of the machine 10, asshown. The disk assembly 18 includes a backing pad 20, generally made ofa rigid foam type material, that is flexible and provides support forthe disk assembly 18. The backing pad 20 can be made of any interwovenmaterial suitable for the purposes described herein and having thedesired firmness and thickness. FIG. 6 is a section view of the backingpad 20 including a foam material layer 22, an attachment layer 24 on oneface of the foam material layer 22 and an attachment layer 26 on anopposite face of the foam material layer 22. In one non-limitingembodiment, the attachment material layers 24 and 26 are a hook and/orloop layer, such as VELCRO®, although other attachment materials may beapplicable. The pad 20 also includes a central opening 28 that alignswith the protrusion 16 on the drive plate 14. The attachment layer 24may provide an attachment device to attach the disk assembly 18 to thedrive plate 14.

The disk assembly 18 also includes a thin flexible disk 30 being made ofa flexible material suitable for the purposes described herein, such asrubber. The disk 30 is thinner that the pad 20, where the pad 30 acts asa support layer for the disk 30. The flexible disk 30 has the samediameter as the pad 20 so that the central opening 28 of the pad 20aligns with a central opening 32 in the flexible disk 30. The flexibledisk 30 includes an attachment layer 34 on one face directed towards thepad 20 which can be the opposite hook and/or loop material as theattachment layer 26 of the pad 20. In this manner, the flexible disk 30is removably attached to the pad 20. The flexible disk 30 also includesan attachment layer 36, such as a hook and loop layer, on an oppositeface of the disk 30. In an alternate embodiment, the openings 28 and 32are not provided in the pad 20 and the disk 30, respectively, as theyare not necessary to attach the disk assembly 18 to the machine 10.

The disk assembly 18 also includes a plurality of round abrasive heads40 secured to the flexible disk 30 opposite to the pad 20. In analternate embodiment, the abrasive heads 40 are permanently attached tothe flexible disk 30, such as by glue, where the flexible disk 30 wouldneed to be removed from the pad 20 to change the abrasive heads 40. Inthis non-limiting embodiment, the abrasive heads 40 are removablyattached to the flexible disk 30 using an attachment layer 42 thatcorresponds to the attachment layer 34. In this regard, each abrasivehead 40 includes a hook or loop layer that is opposite to the attachmentlayer 36 on the flexible disk 30. The detachability of the abrasiveheads 40 from the flexible disk 30 would allow individual abrasive heads40 to be replaced in the event that they were damaged or becomeexcessively worn.

Many different types of abrasive heads 40 may be used, withdiamond-impregnated materials being among the most common. A feature ofmany of the abrasive heads 40, especially the diamond-impregnated typeused to finish hard stone floor surfaces, is that the abrasive head 40is made up of many small elements of a cutting material defined by aseries of grooves 44 and raised lands 46 that provide the desiredgrinding, polishing, cleaning or smoothing, such as different gritsizes, in a desired orientation. The grooves 44 allow water and soliddebris to flow out from under the abrasive head 40 and be swept out tothe side of the grinding and polishing machine 10. The grooves 44 andlands 46 on the abrasive head 40 can be arranged in many differentpatterns, with circular and spiral patterns on round abrasive heads 40being among the most common designs.

The abrasive heads 40 can be positioned at any location on the flexibledisk 30, can include any suitable number of abrasive heads, which wouldgenerally depend on the diameter of the disk assembly 18, and/or haveany suitable diameter. FIG. 4 shows one representative embodiment, withtwo groups of three abrasive heads 40, each group of three beingsymmetrically spaced circumferentially around the disk 30, and the twogroups being separated radially such that there is a small overlapbetween the two groups. In FIG. 4, the inner group provides the abrasiveheads 40 as being tangent to the central opening 32 of the flexible disk30. Other embodiments are possible in which the inner group of theabrasive heads 40 are placed farther from the center of the flexibledisk 30 than the radius of the central opening 32. This is desirable insome configurations, depending on the overall size of the disk assembly18 and the intended rotational speed of operation, because the abrasiveheads 40 are not effective if they do not have sufficient velocityrelative to the floor surface. Also, many variations in the number ofabrasive heads 40 are possible, including more or fewer than two groupsof the heads 40, with each group containing more or fewer than threeabrasive heads 40. For example, a single group of abrasive heads 40 ispossible, in which each abrasive head 40 spans substantially the entiredistance from the central opening 32 to the outside diameter of theflexible disk 30. Alternatively, two or more groups of abrasive heads 40may be included. This latter embodiment is especially appropriate forlarger sizes of the flexible disk 30, where the most effective way tocover the larger surface area is through the use of more individualabrasive heads 40. The abrasive heads 40 can be any of a variety ofsizes, depending on the overall size of the flexible disk 30, and thenumber of abrasive heads 40 used.

From the discussion above, two advantages of the present invention arereadily apparent. The first advantage of the disk assembly 18 is itsbending flexibility. Some floor surfaces are intended to be perfectlyflat. But in many floor applications, non-planar surfaces, both convexand concave, are present. Other unevenness in the form of lippage, orheight variation between sections of the floor, may also be present.Typical floor grinding and/or polishing machines have difficultytreating non-planar or uneven surfaces, because these machines havetheir cutting heads directly attached to a rigid drive plate. This makessuch machines desirable for finishing very flat planar floor surfaces,but less desirable for finishing floors which contain unevenness orcurvature. In contrast, the embodiments of the present invention allowthe individual abrasive heads 40 to follow the contour of the floorsurface even if it is not flat. The flexible disk 30 is of a sufficientthickness, for example, at least 2 mm, to provide enough in-planestiffness to drive the abrasive heads 40 in their circular motion.However, the flexible disk 30, when attached to the backing pad 20,allows a significant amount of flexibility or compliance in thedirection normal to the floor surface. This allows the individualabrasive heads 40 to follow the contour of the floor when there iscurvature or unevenness.

The second advantage of the present invention is the ease with which theabrasive heads 40 can be replaced. In a typical floor grinding andpolishing process, multiple grits, or levels of coarseness, of theabrasive heads 40 are used in successive steps. For example, a roughconcrete or terrazzo floor as poured will require a very coarse grit forthe first pass of the grinding machine 10. The coarse grit removes arelatively large amount of floor material, resulting in a significantlysmoother surface than as-poured. The coarse grit is followed by amedium-coarse grit, and so on until a very fine grit abrasive head 40 isused to create an extremely smooth surface finish. The inevitablechanging of abrasive heads 40 can be time consuming and error prone wheneach abrasive head 40 must be replaced individually. By combining allabrasive heads 40 of a given grit size into a single polishing disk,with a simple hook and loop type fastening surface, the process ofchanging abrasive head grit sizes is significantly simplified. Inaddition, having all of the abrasive heads of a given grit sizeincorporated into a single polishing disk eliminates the possibility oferroneously installing mismatched abrasive heads on the grindingmachine.

FIG. 7 is a section view of a rigid backing plate 50 which canoptionally be placed between the flexible disk 30 and the backing pad20. The rigid backing plate 50 includes a metal disk 52 of substantiallythe same size and shape as the flexible disk 30, and of a thicknesssufficient to prevent bending of the flexible disk 30 or vertical motionof the abrasive heads 40 relative to each other during operation, suchthickness being at least 5 mm. The rigid backing plate 50 includes anattachment layer 54 directed toward the backing pad 20 which can be theopposite hook and/or loop material as the attachment layer 26 of the pad20. The rigid backing plate 50 also includes an attachment layer 56directed toward the flexible disk 30 which can be the opposite hookand/or loop material as the attachment layer 34 of the flexible disk 30.The rigid backing plate 50 is intended to be used in conjunction withthe flexible disk 30 and the backing pad 20 when the floor grinding orpolishing application requires the abrasive heads 40 to maintain a flatplanar surface.

The disk assembly 18 as disclosed has been shown to be effective whenused on floor grinding and scrubbing machines, which typically operatein the range of 135-300 rpm, and also to work effectively on high-speedfloor burnishing machines, which typically operate in the range of1200-3000 rpm.

The foregoing discussion discloses and describes merely exemplaryembodiments of the present invention. One skilled in the art willreadily recognize from such discussion and from the accompanyingdrawings and claims that various changes, modifications and variationscan be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention as defined in the following claims.

1. A disk assembly comprising: a flexible disk having opposing faces, anouter diameter and an inner diameter; and a plurality of separateabrasive heads affixed to one face of the flexible disk.
 2. The diskassembly of claim 1 further comprising a fastening mechanism affixed tothe other face of the flexible disk.
 3. The disk assembly of claim 2further comprising a foam backing pad attached to the flexible disk bythe fastening mechanism.
 4. The disk assembly of claim 2 furthercomprising a rigid metal backing plate attached to the flexible disk bythe fastening mechanism.
 5. The disk assembly of claim 4 furthercomprising a foam backing pad attached to the rigid metal backing plate.6. The disk assembly of claim 2 wherein the fastening mechanism is alayer of loop-type fastener material.
 7. The disk assembly of claim 1wherein the abrasive heads are diamond-impregnated abrasive heads. 8.The disk assembly of claim 1 wherein the flexible disk is rubber.
 9. Thedisk assembly of claim 1 wherein the abrasive heads are permanentlyaffixed to the flexible disk.
 10. The disk assembly of claim 9 whereinthe abrasive heads are glued to the flexible disk.
 11. The disk assemblyof claim 1 wherein the abrasive heads are detachably affixed to theflexible disk.
 12. The disk assembly of claim 11 wherein the abrasiveheads are affixed to the flexible disk by a hook and loop material. 13.The disk assembly of claim 1 wherein the plurality of abrasive headsincludes a first group of abrasive heads arranged substantially alongthe outer diameter of the flexible disk, and a second group of abrasiveheads arranged substantially along the inner diameter of the flexibledisk.
 14. The disk assembly of claim 13 wherein the first and secondgroups of cutting heads alternate in circumferential position around theflexible disk.
 15. The disk assembly of claim 1 wherein the abrasiveheads are round.
 16. The disk assembly according to claim 1 wherein thedisk assembly is suitable for a burnishing machine.
 17. A disk assemblyfor grinding and/or polishing floors, comprising: a rubber disk havingopposing faces, an outer diameter and an inner diameter; a plurality ofseparate and round diamond-impregnated abrasive heads rigidly affixed toone face of the rubber disk; and a foam backing pad attached to theother face of the rubber disk by a layer of hook and loop type fastenermaterial.
 18. The disk assembly of claim 17 wherein the plurality ofabrasive heads includes a first group of cutting heads arrangedsubstantially along the outer diameter of the rubber disk, and a secondgroup of abrasive heads arranged substantially along the inner diameterof the rubber disk.
 19. The disk assembly of claim 18 wherein the firstand second group of abrasive heads alternate in circumferential positionaround the rubber disk.
 20. The disk assembly according to claim 17wherein the disk assembly is suitable for a burnishing machine.